Mother Jones, the politically-leaning magazine dedicated to social causes, recently tried to request public records related to Mike Huckabee's term as Arkansas governor in the earlier part of last decade. Turns out, there were no records. Why? Huckabee destroyed his hard drives.

According to MoJo, the story first surfaced during his failed bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, but quickly fizzled out for whatever reason. In any case, when Huckabee wrapped up his 12-year-govenorship in 2005, any computer used by he or his staff had the drives erased and physically crushed. And of course, no hard copies of any documents exist anymore.

"....What do the Huckabee files hold? The records could provide details on any number of unsettled controversies involving a governor that faced at least 15 ethics complaints concerning, among other things: his failure to report gifts and outside income, his alleged use of state funds and resources for political and personal purposes, and the pardon of a convicted murderer and rapist who went on to kill again once released."

Even if Huckabee did nothing wrong, it's sketchy. These are not his private computers. These were machines owned by the state of Arkansas used to serve the public. And technically, by trashing those hard drives he did over $335,000 worth of damages to public property. Any data stored on those machines should be publicly accessible unless legally approved otherwise.

Maybe is not totally shocking, given Huckabee's general tendencies to keep things out of the public eye, but it's odd that someone who runs on a platform of ethics, morals and (at times) government transparency would go to such great lengths to hide his doings (especially after those ethics complaints and a potential 2012 presidential bid in line). But hey, politics! Right? [Mother Jones]